Pharmacist-Led Interventions Reduce Adverse Events Associated with Polypharmacy

Ginah Nightingale, PharmD, BCOP, associate professor of pharmacy practice at the Jefferson College of Pharmacy at Thomas Jefferson University discusses how pharmacist-led interventions help to reduce adverse events associated with polypharmacy in geriatric patients during the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL.

Transcript

So I think that it’s important because I think pharmacists are uniquely to trained to actually perform these kind of medication therapy management sessions, making sure that each medication has an appropriate indication, making sure that the dose is appropriate, making sure that the duration of use is appropriate, screening for drug interactions. So I think pharmacists have the core competencies to be able to do that. While I realize that a lot of organizations might not have access to a full time pharmacist, there are some novel ways in which we can actually use clinical decision support tools to be able to help other clinicians be able to perform these tasks. I do think that there is an opportunity to either consult pharmacists or to use other mid-level practitioners to make sure that they’re trained to be able to perform these medication management sessions efficiently and appropriately.